25 Creative Ways to Grow Your Marketing List

April 3 2012 by adminone Commented

Did you know that your email database decreases by 25% each year? Pretty shocking, but it’s a fact. People change jobs and get new company emails, they decide they want to unsubscribe from your list, or they finally stop checking that old email address they were holding on to.

To make sure you are keeping your number of contacts consistent, it is your job to make sure that you are constantly adding fresh contacts to replace those that are leaving you. If you haven’t yet started to grow your email list, or have used up all of your ideas to generate new addresses, here are 25 tips that may help you get inspired again.

1) Create great email content. Remember that old saying “If you build it, they will come”? It’s the same idea with email marketing. If you are writing awesome content that is relevant to your client base, they will stay subscribed and encourage others to sign up

2) Create a new lead generation offer—write a new ebook or checklist that your clients will find useful and put it behind a lead capture tool. This will give you a chance to get someone’s email in exchange for their information.

3) Host an online webinar about a hot topic your clients are interested in and gather emails at registration.

4) Create a free online tool that will help your clients and gather their email address (Free Home Value Assessment or Website Grader)

5) Add a QR code to your print marketing and send that to a sign up for your updates.

6) Promote an online contest and have entrants sign up with their email address or by sending you an email.

7) Add an email sign up tab on your website or on your Facebook page.

8) Run a promotion on a referral partner or affiliate site to gather email addresses from a whole new pool of potential customers.

9) Collect email addresses at trade shows and any other events you attend and import them into your database. It’s always best to send them a welcome email letting them know how you got their contact information and what they will be receiving from you moving forward.

10) Encourage your current subscribers to share your content and make it easy for them to do so. Add “share” buttons that allow them to share the information on Facebook or email the newsletter to a friend. You should also include a Subscribe link at the bottom of all emails so new readers can be sure to receive your updates.

11) Create a Google Adwords email capture campaign. While this is still experimental, several companies are giving this a shot. You can also leverage the paid ads you already have out there by linking them to a page that gathers an email address. New to the paid advertising world? 220 Marketing has several specialists that can guide you through each step of the way and tools to help make your campaign successful so you get a return on your investment.

12) Create multiple email subscription types. This will help you to send more targeted emails while ensuring your clients are getting what they really want and therefore staying subscribed. This will also increase the likelihood that a new subscriber will find something to sign up for that interests them.

13) When making an appearance as a guest on another blog, include a link to allow readers to sign up for your updates in the author byline.

14) Create a campaign on Twitter for a free ebook or checklist and link them to a landing page that gathers their information.

15) Use your Facebook business page to let people know about your ebooks and other promotions and include a link to those landing pages. You can also create an app on your timeline that promotes your updates as well as adding sharing buttons on your landing pages so that people can share your promotions with their friends.

16) Post offers redeemable with an email address in your LinkedIn groups or recommend one of your offers as an answer in LinkedIn Answers.

17) Promote offers and email sign up in your Google+ posts and the About section of your Google+ account.

18) Use Pinterest to link to your lead generation offers. It will work best if you create a cover image for your campaign and pin that image on a Special Offers board that your clients can click on and repin.

19) Use your YouTube channel to drive people to your sign up pages. Adding a call to action at the end of each video letting them how they can get more information will help drive them to those pages. You should also include this information in the text video information section.

20) Partner up with one of your affiliates in a related field and advertise one of your offers that will be relevant to their client base in their email campaign. Include a link that lets them know how they can continue to receive updates from you.

21) Encourage clients that you are currently targeting via postal mail to sign up for your email updates and opt out of postal mail. Let them know they can be environmentally friendly while receiving updates in a more timely manner. Be sure to include a URL in the piece of mail they can visit to sign up for your email campaign.

22) Host your own offline event like conferences and educational panels and require each attendee to register online with their email address.

23) Link to offers that capture email address on every page of your website. Keep the calls to action and special offers visible so they have access to sign up without having to dig for the right spot. Critical places to have links would be the main page of your blog, your About Us section and the Contact Us page.

24) Breathe some new life into your old email lists. Send an email asking your older database to re-opt in to your mailings, but make sure the email is exciting and full of things they will have access to by opting in again. Also promise to remove any people who wish to be removed.

25) Host a co-marketing webinar with a referral partner where you can both share your expertise and gain a new list of contacts through the registration sign up.

While many of these ideas may seem too simple, they are most likely something that you are not currently implementing. Trying all different angles will give you a wider pool to gather new lead information and grow your email list. These are all things you can start working on today without a lot of effort.

Do you have something that has worked in the past for gathering new emails for your database? We’d love to hear your ideas and tips that you can add to our list in the comments!

Follow 220 Marketing for Daily Market Updates

One comment on “25 Creative Ways to Grow Your Marketing List”

Great idea John, thanks for contributing! One way to even further promote your business would be to include a QR code that sends clients directly to a newsletter sign up on your website so you can really make the most out of all of the space on your business card.